One Step Too Far
by HPandWforever
Summary: Tarmon Gai'don is over and the Light has won. During a victory parade Mat sees something that may change his life forever. Kind of Rand-bashing. MatxTuon Slightly fuller summary inside. Rating to be sure, there is some swearing, but it's WoT swears so I don't know if it counts.


This is set shortly after Tarmon Gai'don. It is probably very AU and OOC for Rand, I don't think it is for Mat. This idea came to me years ago, I just never wrote it down before, so some things probably won't be very canon. Also Mat has both his eyes in my head, but that doesn't really matter for the story, they aren't mentioned.

This is very angsty and dark and dramatic, so if you don't like that don't read it.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Everything in here belongs to the brilliant Robert Jordan. (Although it might be his wife now.)

**One step too far**

Mat was riding alongside Perrin through the streets of Ebou Dar. _If he makes us go to one more of these bloody flaming victory parades I'm going to bloody kick him!_ Mat was getting annoyed with Rand for dragging him along all the time. If everybody else wanted to stick around to kiss his boots, that was all very fine, but leave him out of it. The object of his annoyance was riding ahead of him and Perrin, surrounded by a circle of Maidens of the Spear, as always. Tarmon Gai'don might be over and done with, but they weren't about to give up their claim on him.

He was looking through the crowds when he saw something that made his heart stop. Without realising it he had stopped and gotten off of his horse. Walking past the row of guards posted to keep the streets clear, he made his way into the mass of people. The woman he was headed for was dressed in the sheer robes of a _da'covale_ and dropped her eyes to the stones beneath her feet once she noticed him coming her way. She was almost at the very back of the spectators, just a few feet from the walls of a row of houses. When he came to a halt in front of her, she flung herself to ground.

He couldn't believe what he was seeing. _Blood and bloody ashes! What in the name of the Light is going on here?_ He sank to his knees and reached out to pull her to her feet, wrapping his arms around her to stop her from prostrating herself again.

"Tuon?"

The woman in his arms started to shake at hearing her name.

"Tuon what's wrong? Why are you dressed like that? Did someone do this to you?" Mat was starting to panic slightly. He didn't understand what could possibly have happened to her. He'd seen her only that morning before going to meet Perrin!

"Mat what's going on?" It seemed that Perrin had followed him, along with Faile. He turned towards his friend's wife, desperate for answers.

"Someone's done something to Tuon. I think she thinks she's a _da'covale_. You saw her this morning, right? Do you know how we can fix this? She won't even look at me!" Mat realised he was starting to ramble and clamped his mouth shut before he went into a full-blown panic. He didn't want to frighten Tuon any more than he already had. Luckily, Faile had picked up on that as well. When she spoke it was in a calm and quiet voice, much like the tone you used to address a sick friend.

"I'm sorry Mat, but I didn't see her this morning. When I got to the appartements she had already left. The servants told me she was going to an important meeting, but she didn't tell me with who.

At this point they had attracted a lot of notice. Most of the people from the parade had joined them by now and the guards and Maidens had formed a protective ring around them.

"The meeting." It seemed like a light had gone off inside his head. "She was going to a meeting with – YOU!"

Spinning round he grabbed Rand by the collar of his coat and slammed him into the wall. Everyone was slightly caught off guard by his sudden movement. Before anyone could react he had one of knives pressed to Rand's throat and was yelling at him. "What did you do to her?!"

The Maidens had raised their veils and were advancing upon the pair when Rand waved them off. Grudgingly they stopped a few feet away.

Turning back to Rand Mat felt the medallion go cold against his chest. "Forgot about that, did you? Your precious One Power won't stop me." He practically sneered, "Now tell me, what did you do to her?"

"What did I do to who?" Rand asked, apparently he hadn't seen who was the cause of all this trouble.

Mat pointed to Tuon, who was now being comforted by Faile. "Her! What did you do?"

"What makes you think I did anything to her?"

Mat almost screamed in frustration and pressed harder against the knife."Because she was absolutely fine this morning!" Seeing what he was doing, the Maidens started to edge closer again.

"How would you know how she was this morning?" Rand asked, looking slightly confused.

"Because I bloody well saw her, didn't I! Are you going to tell me what you did or not?"

"Do you even know who she is?"

Mat's eyes almost bugged out of his head. "Do I flaming know who she is?!" He roared, "That's Tuon Athaem Kore Paendrag! Seated on the Crystal Throne, Defender of the Realm, Ruler over the Aryth Ocean, Empress of the bloody Seanchan! Any of that ring any bells? Of course I bloody well know who she is!"

"Yes, she's the Empress of the Seanchan! That's exactly why I did it! She's the reason women get collars stuck around their necks! She's the reason that all those _da'covale_ and those _damane_ (he spat the word) can't even talk about themselves as people! They think they're things!"

"Oh you goat-kissing fool! She can learn to channel! Did you know that?! She passed the test to become a _suldam_! Do you really think she would make someone go through that if it could happen to her as well?"

Rand looked dumbstuck for a moment.

"All I did was give her a taste of her own medicine." he retorted.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Mat was passed the stage of yelling, his voice was so low he practically hissed the words. At the same time a small bubble of blood burst out from under his knife. When the Maidens saw this a different kind of hissing arose from behind is back. He could almost see the furious hand-talk that was going on.

"Oh come off it!" Rand exclaimed, "She's got an Aes Sedai trained as her pet!"

"You mean Mylen? She loves that woman!"

"You have got to be kidding me! That woman is clearly brain-washed! How else would you explain her behaviour?"

Mat's mind went reeling, he couldn't grasp what he'd just heard, he didn't want to believe it.

"Rand- You didn't- Rand, tell me you didn't."

"Didn't do what?"

"Please tell me you didn't mess with her mind." Mat was close to breaking point.

"Like I said, I only did to her what she did to others." He was quite calm as he said it.

"Reverse it."

"I can't reverse it."

A roar of fury was ripped from Mat as he heard that. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't shove this knife through your throat right now!" he yelled, "Give me one reason!"

Before Rand could even open his mouth he was cut off.

"And don't give me that crap about being the flaming Dragon Reborn. In case you hadn't noticed, Tarmon Gai'don is over. The world doesn't need you anymore. We can all live our lives quite happily without you! And I swear, I swear to the Light and the Creator and anything else I hold dear, if you even try to say 'because you're my friend' you won't live a second longer than it takes to say it. _Friends_ don't do that to each other! So go on, give me a reason!"

Rand was speechless for a moment. The blood was flowing freely from his neck by this point, the Maidens were getting very restless.

"Why do you even care about what happens to her?" Rand said eventually.

That was it, the last straw, Mat just couldn't take it anymore. He let out a wordless shout of anger and despair. "That's my wife, you eyeless son of a goat! Do you have any idea of what you've done?"

Upon hearing this the Maidens backed off. This changed everything. But it didn't matter, Mat flung his knife to the ground and backed away, unable to be near Rand anymore.

"That's it, we're done." His voice sounded distant, even to himself. He couldn't take this, didn't know how to handle it. _Light what am I going to tell the children?_

"What? What do you mean 'we're done'?"

"I mean that I never want to see you again. I mean that I'm taking Tuon back to the palace right now, so Nynaeve can Heal her, and then one of your flaming Ashaman can make us a gateway home."

"Mat you can't go home, the Two Rivers isn't the same anymore."

"Don't you get it?! The Two Rivers hasn't been my home for years! My home is where Tuon is, and that happens to be Seandar. So get this through that ox-brained skull of yours. You are going to make sure that I get her home safely, and then I never want to see your face again. If you ever set foot on Seanchan soil I will hunt you down and kill you myself!"

And with that Mat turned around, gently scooped Tuon into his arms, and made his way back to his horse.

_**AN: Hope you liked it! This is my first WoT fanfic, so I hope I did it justice. I don't know why I kept referring to the Maidens and the blood, it just came out like that. I also have absolutely no idea of what happened to the Two Rivers or why they can't go back, they just can't. Please leave a review, they make me happy. :)**_


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